Beauty Blog

Tag: beauty

This is the NYXmatte liquid liner in the color MLL01 Black. The brush is a classic thin brush, no hardened foam or anything. The brush is thinner than it looks like on the pic, because there it’s loaded with product.

A common liquid liner problem for me is that I have hooded eyes and I apply the liner and then I look up into the big mirror – bam! Liner all over the place. *sob* And in real life I can’t do the Violet Chachki thing and declare the whole lid liner. So I don’t do classic liquid liner that often, eye liner pens work better for me. But I’m nothing if not stubborn with a shopping problem. Hence trying out the NYX matte liquid liner. It comes out liquid and dries down matte like liquid lipstick – and it dries down super quick! No more “augh I opened my eye!”. On the downside it dries so fast it dries on the brush while painting. So you need to dip back in several times (depending on how much you have to fuss around. If you’re good, once is enough).

Swatches! Truly matte. Even the very thick line dried quickly. You can also see it can get patchy on the edges.

The product does not claim to be waterproof, but it claims to be water resistant. Not sure what’s the difference there, except resistant is probably the more honest claim. It behaves like a waterproof item. You certainly need oil to remove it. It does not smudge, but what it does is crumble. Not like in huge pieces, but like you can see in the swatch the edges aren’t smooth, and it just gets more and more like that as time goes on. Upon removal you do get bigger crumbles.

I’m not a huge liquid liner expert, but for me this was certainly the easiest one to apply, as described above. I can actually play around and do winged liner without messing everything up, woohoo. This weighs up the bit of crumbling it does for me, but you’ll have to decide if it’s worth it for yourself.

I’m certainly tempted now to also try their other liquid liners to see if it’s a NYX thing or if it’s a matte thing that does the trick for me.

This is the Essence nailpolish in 01 Hello Holo from their Holo Rainbow set. I am wearing two coats plus top coat. The top sunk into the gritty polish though, as usual with heavy glitter polishes. The polish is just straight up holo as promised. I know lately it’s been a trend to complain “that’s not holo” on fake holo makeup and I’ve seen people comment that about nail polish as well, but it is holo. The colors in each particle shift through the whole rainbow = holo.

I like that the polish was thick enough that you could easily get this opaque. I also didn’t have to move the glitter around much to get an even distribution. I’ve had much worse glitter polishes from essence before. But this one gets a total approval from me. It also lasted very well, apart from the fact that there was some shrinkage. I don’t know, this often happens to me when I wear heavy glitter polish, that the polish shrinks after a few hours and leaves some of my nail free. Other than that, there was some chipping on day four.

You better have some peel off base coat, because getting that stuff off otherwise is hell. I know because atm I don’t have any peel off base and ugh. There won’t be more glitter reviews anytime soon. The sparkles are so pretty, though!

The whole Holo Rainbow stuff was introduced into the permanent range half a year ago. So, these are not LE – although with essence you never know when they discontinue stuff again so if you want them, get them soon.

The lipstick design is very pretty with the huge Sia written on the side. What I don’t like about the design is that the packaging is completely smooth. I dropped this lipstick several times when trying to open it in the early morning. *sob* The usual satin surface is much better imho.

Swatch. Now look at this gorgeous red. The lipstick is matte, but for MAC more on the creamy side, comparable to Urban Decay Comfort Matte finish. I don’t think it was drying on my lips, but it is january and the temperatures are sub zero, so my lips are dry anyways.

The color is straight up red with no undertones pulling yellow or pink. In certain lights it may look more pink or more yellow but it’s a true red. If you look really closely you can see there is very small red shimmer in it. This is not a shimmery lipstick but I think the shimmer helps the color along to look most vivd. Nail polishes sometimes pull the same trick.

Honestly I know red lipsticks are legion but this one looks so good. Ugh. Have some comparisons:

Viva Glam I is obviously much darker, Ruby Woo is lighter and pinker (and drier), Mrs Mia Wallace is darker and glossier. The closest match is the L’Oreal lipstick Liya’s Red, but that’s also slightly pinker. So far, Liya was my reference for a true red, but now my references will be Sia and Mrs Mia Wallace. But the best drugstore dupe I could find was Liya, which I’m not sure I think it’s still being sold? They always say it’s limited but for the last couple of years it was always in stores.

But back to Sia: I love the color. The lasting power could be a bit better though. From a matte lipstick from MAC I expect four hours of this color on my lips, but it barely lasted three. 😦 It did not leave a stain either, and it wore off on the inside of the lips completely and stayed on the outer parts, so reapplication was very necessary.

I then decided to help it out by applying lip liner. My closest lip liner was Ruby Woo. The liner is less pink than the lipstick so it worked well. Putting the lip liner all over and then the lipstick on top made it last four to five hours and I needed only little touch ups later. Maybe it’ll get less creamy with time and last better. I guess I’m simply spoiled by liquid lipsticks nowadays.

So yes, depending on if you want a true red or not, this one is certainly worth checking it out. It should be available for at least the next six months.

This is the MACExtra Dimension Skinfinish in the color Soft Frost. I’ve wanted this since it came out, but many others wanted it too and so it was very often sold out. Luckily, this is a permanent item and keeps getting restocked so I finally have mine. In the pan it looks plain white, only when you tilt it just right you can see the purple shimmer.

Swatch! It’s purple alright. There’s not much of a color shift to it, it changes a little from more pink purple to more blue purple, but that’s only when you look very closely. So, there’s no duochrome quality to it. The base color does not apply as far as I can tell. On me it looks completely invisible unless the light hits in which case it looks like in this swatch. You can buff it out some to make it more subtle as well. So this should be wearable for all skintones despite looking stark white in the pan, but I only tested it on my skin of course.

The shimmer is very fine. I can see no sparkles in it. This is one of the finest highlighters I own.

On my cheeks it lasts about nine hours. Qualitywise one of the best highlighters I own and despite the fact that it’s purple it’s surprisingly wearable. The price is a bit steep though, imo. I do want to mention that Nyx has a very similar highlighter for a lot less money, the color pulls a bit more blue though.

Hello, everybody. I hope you arrived well in the new year. Over here, it is being cold and snowy right now, as it should be. Matching the weather my makeup style is very glowy, very pale in color. I’m never into pastels in spring, but in january they’re my favs. Same with highlighters, I’m putting the golds back on the shelf, now it’s all white and silver. So today I’ll be reviewing my first highlighter from Becca. It’s not actually my first Becca product, that was a summery liquid blush, but my first of their famous highlighters.

The packaging has a metal top, but the rest of it is rubbery. As you can imagine, it looks new for exactly three seconds. The powder itself, this is the Shimmering Skin Perfector Pressed in the color Pearl, is white with white/platinum shimmer. I think Becca offers the same colors in different formulas, like liquid etc.

Swatch. It looks pretty close to the pan, doesn’t it? Some highlighters have a base color and a shimmer color, and often the base color doesn’t apply, so you’re left with only the shimmer. (If you don’t know what I mean, an example of that would be the Zoeva Spring Palette which looks off white in the pan but applies only in colored shimmer.) This one, on the other hand, applies definitely with base color, so you’re going to have a white patch or stripe on your face. This is what makes the highlighter so intense and noticeable (like, seriously, guys, this is a youtube/instagram style highlighter, no subtlety to be had) but also not suited for everybody. Luckily, Becca has many shades, including darker ones. My advice would be to get a shade that goes with your skin – unless you are a blending god/goddess who can make this work on dark skin, I mean I’m not going to tell you what do.

Here you can see Pearl applied on my temple. It really is blinding and white (for reference, my skin tone in MAC is NC 15). Also, I’m sorry but I think I’m not actually wearing any makeup here other than the highlighter… I was just so eager to put it on. When I wear primer and foundation the pores look less noticable. But this is the sort of color that would show imperfections.

The wear time on this is amazing. I’m talking fourteen hours and still looking good. The product is finely milled and applies easily, if a bit strong (on purpose). The price is not exactly cheap, though. Becca has so many highlighters out, very pretty shades, but I’m not sure if I’m going to get more…

Also, right now I’m testing a palette by BH Cosmetics, the Carli Bybel Deluxe palette, which includes a white highlighter that looks veeery similar to this. It’s not as fine, though, looks a bit more glittery. However, if that’s good enough for you I thought I’d mention it, since the whole palette is cheaper than a single from Becca.

This is a queued post, so when you’re reading this I’m probably sleeping, haha. Unless I messed up the queue and it back posts to Jan, 1st of 2017…

My year in review: I’m actually shocked I managed to keep up my posting throughout the year as I’ve been mostly sleeping and working all the time and I can barely remember the year as I’ve been tired all the time. But there are a lot of posts so my schedule worked out fine. My plans for next year are to keep up the Monday-Wednesday-Friday posting schedule. Productswise I want to pay more attention to drugstore brands because I found quite a few gems there this year and I hope they’ll keep it up. Most luxury brand releases left me unimpressed in 2017. I used to buy a lot more of those.

In 2017 I also bought wayyyy to many MAC products, like, help, I keep falling for those LEs, even though I know it’s silly. But I also gotta say they turned out to be good quality and I’m still using those items. My plans for next year is still to slow it down with the LEs and go for the regular items I’ve been wanting for a while. Let’s see how that turns out, though.

So to make this post not just boring blabber, I’ve also got a review for you! It’s the MACSnowball Pigment and Glitter Kit in Pink. Yes, Snowball was the Holiday Collection and is already mostly sold out, however, those kits were released later on and right now this kit is still available on the MAC website and it’s even on sale. Also I think those pigment and glitter colors usually pop up again from time to time as well.

Well, the packaging this year was a dream.

And I like that the bag is in fact a lot bigger than it needed to be to hold the three minis. I think you can get about ten single shadows in there at least. The pigments included in this set were: Pigment Whisper Pink, the very lightest shade, Pigment Copper Sparkle, and Glitter Pink.

Swatches: Whisper Pink, Copper Sparkle and Pink.

All of those are loose and produce fallout and are best applied before the rest of the makeup.

Whisper Pink is very light and only barely pink. It’s really more of a shell color if you ask me. The shimmer is a light gold. In fact there is slightly bigger shimmer which is gold and smaller pink shimmer. The color is very pretty and works very well for me, although am not sure if it works for darker skin tones. This can also be used as a highlighter as you can blend it out well and there’s no real base color.

Copper Sparkle is, well the name is what you get. The color is intense and opaque however, as you can see on my swatch, a bit crumbly at first. It’s best to put some out, then dip a brush in and then really swirl the brush around on the back of your hand before putting that onto your face, so the pigment applies smoothly. Once you do that it’s oky, but I don’t understand where the clumps come from. My full sized pigments don’t do this. I’ve right now pulled out my full sized pigments and I gotta say those are five thousand times smoother. The particles are so much smaller. Does MAC put lower grade pigments into their minis??? Or is it just the colors I have?

Pink is just loose pink glitter. This color is always available, at least in pro stores and online. As there is nothing that makes the glitter hold together or adhere anywhere it’s best used with glitter glue. Then you can just pack it on.

The pigments on the other hand can be used on their own and will – once you’re done and cleaned up the fallout – stick to where you put it. But you can also use mixing medium with the pigments to turn them into creams. The glitter though, even when you use glue there is always a piece of glitter that ends up somewhere like in your hair etc, but that’s just how loose glitter behaves.

Personally I like the colors but I think the best thing about the set is in fact the bag. 🙂 I wish the pigments were the same as the full size pigments but they’re not. As is, I don’t plan on getting more of these holiday kits in the future.

For today’s Fragrance Friday I have the perfume that probably surprised me the most this year (plus a tip if you’re still searching for a present):

This is Dolce & Gabbana the one EdT. It was released this year (2017); the nose is Michel Girard. If you’re as confused as I am, yes, the one EdP was released several years ago in 2006, but apparently they never released an EdT to go with it. There are several flankers already, though.

Now, my track record with Dolce & Gabbana perfumes is not the best. Some are nice but forgettable, some have a really nasty shrill fake sandalwood in them. I would have never tried this new EdT if it hadn’t been included as a GWP.

The good news is, there is no sandalwood in the one! The bad news is – well actually I have no bad news for you because I really, truly like this perfume!

It’s a lily perfume, but without the crushing presence lilies can have. It’s not really lightweight, as the main notes are lily, ylang ylang and vanilla, but it’s not a screechy sweet mess either! I’m honestly impressed. For other notes, I get some musk in the dry down, but that’s it. I don’t decect any of the fruit it’s supposed to have. That’s a good thing in my books, as there are so many fruity florals anyway. The biggest problem in perfumery is that so many perfumes smell alike. Now, this one isn’t super original either, but it’s still a fresh breath in the LVEB sea.

It lasts for to five hours. It doesn’t seem to have a strong sillage but it could be the sort of perfume that actually lingers around without you even noticing.

Hello and welcome to my first ever post about Sleek. This brand became available over here last year, but to be honest I looked the products over once, found nothing of interest and forgot about them. This year I started looking for metallic matte lipsticks and now here we are. (This post is not sponsored and I bought all products here myself).

… I kinda bought the whole display. I think it may have been a summer collection or something because it has now been replaced by a Holiday/Winter looking thing, but I checked and all products made the jump into the normal display so hopefully they’re not LE and in the regular range now.

These are the highlighting palette Distorted Dreams 1030, which includes three cream highlighters and two powder highlighters, and three Matte Me Metallic liquid lipsticks, from left to right: Rusted Rose 1042, Volcanic 1043 and Roman Copper 1044.

The applicator looks like this. It is small compared to other brands and not fluffy at all. It felt kinda hard on my lips, but it was easy to get crisp lines which I find more important with a liquid lip than fluffiness.

Single swipe of all three colors, except I managed to mess up the order, sorry about that. So here we have Rusted Rose, a mauve color with frost shimmer, Roman Copper, which is straight up bronze and Volcanic, the most interesting color. It’s a duochrome shimmer shifting from pink to a weird earthy greenish grey, but the pink dominates on the lips.

You can see in the pic that a single swipe isn’t truly opaque. I have come to the realisation that metal liquid lipsticks are a lot like nail polish. They don’t always look good with one coat but you can do a second and then it’s all good. And unlike nailpolish you can add your second layer immediately. I got all colors opaque with two coats.

The Matte Me Metallic are the first metallics I have that are truly and totally matte. This dims the shimmer but that makes them properly metallic in my opinion (as opposed to simply shimmery).

They take a while to completely set, they feel sticky for about twenty minutes but they look dry sooner. The lasting power, though – for a matte liquid lipstick it’s disapointing. It lasts about four hours and wears off when eating on the inside of the lips immediately. It has the lasting power of a regular lipstick, not a liquid. On the upside, once you’re past the sticky stage they feel totally comfortable and are not drying. Compared to other liquid lipsticks, these feel more like a thin mousse.

I think these were the first three Matte Me Metallic, but Sleek has since released more colors. I actually like the ones I own and was willing to get more but all of the new colors have frost shimmer. These three offered some nice variety in color and shimmer, but I really don’t need more that are just like Rusted Rose, but with a slightly different color. Maybe I’ll check out their normal Matte Me range instead, the one without shimmer.

On to the highlighter!!!

Le swatches. The palette lists the names of shades in the back but I can’t tell which one is supposed to be which, so I’ll skip that. I swatched the two powders first, the gold and the pink and then the three creams, a peach, a blue (smallest pan in the middle) and a green that is to die for.

So, yes, cream and powder in the same palette. Lots of people dislike that and for good reason (the powder will contaminate the creams) but I wanted the palette so badly so I tried to be careful with it (with moderate success). Picking the powders up with a brush is the biggest offender here. Using fingers does not create that much flying powder and they actually apply well when using fingers as well (the powders I mean; I always apply creams with my fingers). However I have found that you’ll get the best and biggest impact when using a beauty blender. That’s how you get instagram-highlights out of these (both cream and powder).

All shades are very good, except for the lilacy pink powder, which has less base shimmer and more sparkle. They are invisible heads on (no base color) but show a strong shimmer when the light hits just so. They are among the strongest highlights I have used. While I was testing these out I have by pure chance watched a video by Manny MUA, who did a “Jeffree Star” Halloween look and offhandedly mentioned that Jeffree (famous highlighter lover) likes Sleek highlighters best and now I can say I am not surprised.

Look at this pic I took at six am:

You may have to tilt your screen a bit, but that’s the green highlighter. A picture taken in better light because it was in the afternoon sun:

Yeah, baby. This is the blue one. It’s not like in your face blue, but it does give a very cool vibe.

The wear time of these is also very good I can still see them with the same intensity after eight hours. Most of my expensive highlighters don’t manage that. So, in conclusion I am now thoroughly in love with Sleek highlighters and I want them all.

So, Zoeva has a couple of new palettes out, and they keep adding more new palettes. Deciding which one I wanted got overwhelming so I went for an old one instead:

This is Rodeo Belle, not new and in the regular range (aka non-LE). Huzzah.

The palette design is a bit underwhelming compared to what Zoeva is putting out now, but the shade selection is nice imho. The first row is warm toned, the second one is cool toned. There is both warm and cool neutrals in there and colors. The only truly matte shade is the pink in the middle. The others are at least a bit shimmery, though some apply with no visible shimmer (basically all of the neutral colors).

On to swatches:

The swatches are done in reverse today. First is the black, which is a really good black when applied to the eye, don’t get fooled by this single finger swipe here. You can see the red shimmer on the pic, but it’s not really visible on the eye. It looks a lot more shimmery in the pan, but I like that it applies with a good base color. The black is called Deadshot.

Next color is called Day Money, a cool toned dark grey. It is very soft, but applies without fallout and opaque. Next is Smoking Gun, a, well, gubnmetal grey shimmer. It looks pretty dark in the swatch, but due to it’s high shimmer content can look lighter when worn on the lid due to the way the light hits it. Color itself is opaque.

The green is called Hot Wind. It’s shimmery with a golden shimmer tint, it is buttery and wonderful.

The blue is called Yee Haw; it has golden shimmer, making it very pretty. Wearing blue is a bit difficult for me but the color itself is of good quality.

Now we’ve reached the upper row. The red is Bang Bang, and it’s banging! This is the best red I own, hands down. The color is so strong, but it also blends out well (there’s no point in having lots of pigment if you can’t place and blend it properly) and is absolutely one of the best colors in the palette.

Western Diva is a warm toned mid tone brown. It is very useful to have in this palette because I prefer to pair most color looks with a warm brown. I usually placed this in the crease.

The next color is Cactus Flower. I think this corally pink is sooo pretty and was one of the main reasons I bought this- And then it turned out to be the worst color in the whole palette. Eh. It’s the only matte and it shows. Getting the color to actually show up on the lid and evenly is a fight. I have to pat it on gently three times for even coverage on my lids. What a pity.

Rodeo Ready, the light brown on the other hand is a good kid and the most used color for me. It’s already showing a dent. It might depend on your skin tone how useful this color is, but for me it’s a great warm allrounder. It is so warm it pulls slightly orange, which goes well with blue eyes.

The last, but really first color is Early Sunrise. It’s a shimmery beige, darker than my skin tone, but for most this will be the highlight color. I have used it as an all over wash to even out the lid before putting the rest on. The quality is okay, but I am not sure if it really applied opaque. It’s after all more a subtle highlight than a lid color.

And that’s the whole palette!

tl;dr: It’s a good one if the colors happen to be colors you want, because nobody will buy it for the neutrals even if they are good. Don’t buy it for the peachy pink, though. The rest is great. Best color is the red. Palette design is meh compared to newer Zoeva offerings.

This is a tube of Cosmic Metals by Nyx, the shade is called Celestial (CMLC13).

It has a regular flocked applicator, although it is a bit fluffier than others I think. The product is very goopy and always sticks to the end like in the picture.

Swatch. The color is a warm gold. And yes, it is a lip gloss. On the packaging they call it lip cream, but come on guys, this is a gloss. It has that typical plush glossiness you can only ever get with lip gloss. The color is opaque though and for a lip gloss it lasts surprisingly well. But it’s still a gloss, so don’t expect it to be long lasting. I get about two hours, mayyyyybe three.

Is it metallic? I say yes, of course this is a gold color with gold shimmer, so that wasn’t too hard, but most of the other shades in the cosmic metals range look metallic as well. This range also has very cool colors like blues and greens and such. They look pretty but since the lasting power isn’t that great I decided to stick to a lighter color. It’s just not a liquid lipstick (even though a SA tried to claim that, don’t listen to them) and to be honest I’m not a big gloss wearer. If I were, I would get some of the more outlandish colors, because they are super opaque and they do last longer than regular glosses. They are also very pretty.

The gloss has no discernible taste or smell, which is great. The product is goopy and feels thick on the lips and is sticky – that’s what helps to keep it on. The lips feel moisturized while wearing it and in the evening the skin doesn’t feel like it wants to pop off. If there is a rest of product still on when you take your makeup off it is best to take it off seperately with some micellar water or else you’ll smear the goop all over the place.

Welcome back to: Dandygal tries to review all the metal lip thingies she can get her hands on. Today it’s Too Faced with their Melted Metal liquified metallic lipstick. Too Faced also have a product called Melted Matte, but note that it doesn’t say matte anywhere in the description of the metal one.

The item looks like this, the color is Debutante.

The unused applicator. It is shaped like those gloss plastic things, but is also flocked.

With product coming out.

It’s easy to mash this stuff onto your lips, but I wouldn’t get a dark color because I’m not sure how accurately I could apply it with this thing. As is, the color does not apply completely opaque.

Lip swatch. Debutante is a light coral with lots of gold shimmer in. It is not comepletely opaque and so the red of my lips shows through, pulling it more pink.

The melted metal finish is creamy and doesn’t dry down. So I would consider this a lip cream and not really a liquid lipstick as I expect a matte finish from a liquid lipstick. The upside is it’s nowhere near as drying as a liquid lipstick and when applying you can put it on your lower lip, press your lips together to distribute product and then finish the edges. This is how I usually apply regular lipstick. But you can’t do that with real liquid lipstick at all – if you press your lips together before the product is dry you’ll end up with a mess. The melted metal is a lot easier to use here.

The downside of it not being a matte liquid lipstick is obviously the lasting power. It never dries down and gets continuously less on your lips even if you do not eat or drink. After half an hour there is about half of it left on the lips but on the upside it reduces evenly so it always looks good. I ended up allpying more every couple hours. The squeeze tube houses 12 ml of product so I won’t be running out anytime soon.

Debutante has a weird sort of taste and smell, but it’s not very strong so I got used to it. The first ingredient is castor oil, that’s where it might come from?

To the most important question: is it metal? The shimmer is very fine so yes, I would consider this one here actual metal. So in that regard, this one is a winner.

This little tip belongs to a Chanel eyeliner, the Stylo Yeux Waterproof 925 Pacific Green. I think it was part of a past Spring Collection, but can still be found in stores today. I am generally a fan of the Stylo Yeux Waterproof, because they really are waterproof, they are easy to put on and the color range is big.

Two swatches. The color is sooo pretty, but despite the name I consider it to be more blue than green. It’s a greenish blue with multi colored cool toned shimmer. The mine is very soft which makes it hard to get a thin line. But with a color like that, do you even want a thin line? The liner works both on skin and on the waterline. You can also use it as an eyeshadow, you just gotta be careful because it’s so soft. Don’t press too hard.

Overall, this brings the usual Stylo Yeux Waterproof quality and lasts on skin until I take it off. On the waterline it lasts about four hours, maybe a bit less. It does not smudge but the bigger shimmer particles do wander around some.

A problem I have with my Stylo Yeux Waterproof collection (I have ten) is that some of them break off at the base. Like, the mine as such is whole, but it comes out of the casing. I tend to push it back gently and they’re still usable but they never reattach to the packaging. I used to store them upside down so I could see the color stripe (example shown here), but now I store them horizontally to avoid further breakage. This also sometimes happens with my Rouge Allure & Rouge Allure Velvet lipsticks. I had a similar problem with a thin Estee Lauder lipstick from an LE (not their usual lipstick design) and an old MAC shadestick, but unlike the Chanel items which are still like new those two makeup items were also dried up so I chucked them out. I don’t understand why my Chanel things don’t like to stay properly in their packaging.

But the above is just a general observation. It has not yet happened with Pacific Green, which is a lovely eyeliner if you want the thicker, less crisp design of a soft pencil.

MAC‘s Holiday Collection hit the stores here at the start of November, as always. Some places get it a lot sooner, so I apologize if it’s already sold out where you are. The golden design is pretty and I got a matching shopping bag, too!

I tried to limit myself to the things that I filled a hole in my collection. So I got the Extra Dimension Shadow in Stylishly Merry, and the lipsticks in Shimmer & Spice (Frost) and Elle Belle (Amplified). The snowflake design is very pretty, but I already managed to wear most of it off in a single week.

Swatches! First Elle Belle, then Shimmer & Spice and last the eyeshadow Stylishly Merry.

Elle Belle (Amplified) is such a pretty deep berry red. I’d almost forgotten how good the amplified finish is. The color is rich, the finish creamy and the wear time superb. It loses some of the creaminess after a while and it pretty much wears like a matte lipstick. When eating it wore off on the inside of the lips, but not too much. Great lipstick. A similar lipstick with a tad more brown to it, making it more plummy, but with the same finish, is Dark Side. Dark Side is permanent, so if Elle Belle is already sold out, I would take a look at that one. A good lip liner to go with both of those would be Nightingale.

Shimmer & Spice is a frost finish. I’m still not entirely sure where the difference between frost, lustre and metallic lies. Shimmer & Spice is a clear base packed with red-bronze and gold shimmer particles. It is not opaque at all. (All swatches above are a single swipe btw.) It doesn’t get opaque with more layers either, but overall that makes the glitter bomb more wearable imho. I think it looks very festive on. Wear time is terrible, about two hours, maybe three. But it’s not hard to reapply, so I’m okay with that. Eating wipes it out completely except for some stray shimmer. It’s very pretty but not something you’d probably miss that much if it’s already sold out.

Stylishly Merry is sold as an Extra Dimension Shadow, like all shadows in this collection, but this one seems more like a dazzleshadow to me. I applied it with a flat synthetic brush and didn’t get the desired amount of product, so I wet the brush and that did it. With a wet brush the result looks like in the pan, which is soooo pretty. The color is a yellow gold, but with a duochrome color shift from a yellow so yellow it’s almost green (that particular color most people simply call yellow, but to me green-yellow is a different color) to pink. The shift is visible on the eye and very pretty. I made a simple look by applying this all over the lid liberally and pulling it upwards a bit. Then it looked more yellow on the lid and pink in the crease. Then I blended out the crease with a soft matte brown. Super easy but so effectful. I know no dupe for this, but if you like this you can check out the dazzleshadows. Wear time: I got creasing on the ten hour mark which is pretty good I think. (With eye primer, absolutely nothing lasts on me even an hour without.) There was fallout during the application but once I was done I didn’t get any additional glitter juming around on my face, so that’s good, too.

Overall I am very happy with what I got. I wish the eyeshadow would apply dry as it does wet, but I think the Extra Dimension Shadows aren’t actually meant to be opaque.

This collection is so festive I think I’m already out-holidayed with it. I don’t know what other brands could tempt me with now. Maybe I’ll pick up something later, but in the shimmer and gold department I am done right now.

Did you pick up any holiday items? Are you waiting for later releases or sales? Or are you skipping the whole thing?

This is Beige Doré Rouge Coco Shine from Chanel‘s Spring 2017 LE. Yes I know it’s the end of October right now, but you’ll see you didn’t miss much.

Swatch. It doesn’t get any more intense than that. It’s a very light gold color with some gold shimmer. Sadly, there is really only very little shimmer. I mean Rouge Coco Shines are supposed to be sheer, but usually they pack a little more punch than that. If only it had more shimmer, it would have been right on trend! But… nah. On the lips you basically don’t see much color; you see the glossiness. It’s a glorified lip balm. I mean if you love Rouge Coco Shines you know what you’re getting into and I’ve actually used it quite a bit for no make up make up and such, but… you didn’t really miss much if you din’t get this one.

For comparison, here’s what the Maybelline Metallic Pure Gold looks like (lower swatch):

And this one isn’t opaque either!

And this is how I got a Chanel lipstick for 70% off. No, Chanel don’t do reductions usually. The vendor just really, really wanted this one gone. And if I wasn’t the sort of decadent person who likes using Rouge Coco Shines as lip balm I’d have still been ripped off.

Tune in next week when there will probably be another lipstick review with some visible color and real shimmer!

Pictured here are the MaybellineColorSensational lipsticks in 35 Steel Chic and 10 Pure Gold. They both come in Maybelline’s newest finish, metallic. Now these may be old news if you live like in the US or something because they were released a year ago. But they didn’t make it to our tiny country in Europe until now. They didn’t even get a display, they were just added to the regular lipsticks and I wouldn’t even have noticed them if they didn’t have a two digit number instead of three digit. Yes I’m the nerd who notices these things.

There were more colors but they swatched pretty patchy, so they weren’t allowed to come even if in theory they looked super pretty.

Swatch, first Steel Chic, then Pure Gold (don’t you think that looks like it should be called Pure Copper instead?). Both colors are not opaque and no amount of application on the lips made them stay opaque (even if they looked it at first, the color wore off again). So while these smell and apply like Maybelline’s bold and matte finish (and the finish is matte) they don’t have their color intensity. However, once you accept that, they make pretty good lipsticks. The upside to not being opaque is that it blends in better with your own skin tone. Pure Gold is a pretty intense color and you may feel more comfortable wearing it if you only applied a little bit, anyway.

I’d call Steel Chic a taupe color with frosty shimmer. Pure Gold, I don’t even know if i has a base color, it seems to be shimmer all the way. Both colors go well with the current trend of matte high shimmer lips. I think those truly deserve the metallic tag, unlike the MAC metallic lipsticks, which were just their usual lustre finish with more chunks of glitter. Swatches of the MAC metallic finish can be seen here and here.

Steel Chic is the perfect color for you if you want to try the very cool toned dark taupe trend, but find opaque ones (like from the Balmain Collection here) too stark. Use your finger for blending the edges and you’ll get a pretty cool grunge look.

Pure Gold is almost more suited for costumes of egyptian goddesses/Beyoncé.

Both lipsticks last around four hours, Pure Gold a bit longer than Steel Chic. They wear off on the inside when you eat. Both lipsticks have the typical Maybelline Color Sensational smell, which is a sort of funky fruity bubblegum smell. Keep that in mind if you hate smelly lipsticks.

Here’s my review of the third MAC Retro Matte liquid lipstick I bought back in spring. It’s the color Divine-Divine, which is basically Barbie Pink. This is from the regular MAC retro matte lineup. They have recently released new ones with shimmer in, but this is not one of those.

Before I go on, allow me to give a little history of lipstick trends: when I was a teen, lipgloss was all the rage. Nobody wore lipstick, nobody. This has led to adult me despising lipgloss, because it’s sticky and doesn’t last well and hair constantly sticks to it, ugh. Then Chanel released their Rouge Coco Shines, to seduce people who loved gloss back to lipsticks. And it worked, so for a while shiny, sheer lipstick was the thing. Then the Chubby sticks came out, going for a similar but slightly less glossy finish. Then the trend slowly went towards glossy stains. I dislike glossy stains because they’re still too much like lipgloss to me. Luckily technology marched on and liquid lipsticks that were not glossy became a thing. This was the biggest lip trend for the last few years: very matte lips. Then, this year people got bored by super matte lips and the metallic lip trend was born. There will be several matte metallic lipstick reviews coming up on this blog. But this one right here is still on the very matte, non shimmery side of things.

Still mostly wet swatch of Divine-Divine. You can already see it drying to the thin, very texturized finish typical for the liquid retro mattes. The color is a light bubble gum pink. Basically every time I put it on I was surprised at how light it is, but it ends up looking pretty good (might depend on your skin color). Most of MAC’s retro mattes were too dark for me except for this one and Flesh Stone.

Lip swatch shot with my phone. This is basically what Divine-Divine looks like after a couple of hours. This is not cracked, but the lip lines show super deep. In my experience this is completely normal with this sort of finish. To avoid cracking it is important to smile after application so that the color can settle in there before it dries. If you do that, the lines will show, but if you don’t you’ll get cracking as soon as you move your mouth.

Divine-Divine lasts very well and is really only affected by oil. So oily food takes it off (on the inside mostly) or oil remover. Otherwise it sticks on. The finish feels and looks dry and the next day my lips felt drier than usual. But for me this was not worse than matte MAC lipsticks in a bullet. Matte MAC stuff is just drying. I combat that by applying a strong lip balm before application and then again after I take the lipstick off. If you generally have a problem with flaky lips you probably won’t get happy with Divine-Divine as it does show the flakes.

While I like the colors I own I don’t feel the need to have any more of these. They’re okay for a certain sort of look, but then I’m glad when I can reach for more creamy stuff again. As mentioned, there’s going to be some more shimmery stuff up next, right for fall and holiday season!

When essence released their new foundation I was so busy getting it that I didn’t even notice they had also released a primer to go with it. Weeks later I’m at the drugstore and I go, hey, what’s that thing with the “new” sticker on? Why, it is the Fresh & Fit Awake Primer that promises you a healthy glow and a pore minimizing effect.

Like the foundation, it actually does contain all those promised vitamins and in fact, more than that. Like the foundation, the back of the packaging (not pictured) promised you “vitamin b3, vitamin e, provitamin b5 & cranberry water”. Looking at the ingredients there is also retinol in and vitamin c, but vitamin c is the lowest on the list, so there’s probably not all that much. Neither the foundation nor the primer promise SPF, but both contain some iron oxides and titanium oxide, so it might give a little bit of SPF. Still, personally I also put on my normal sun protection when using this, especially since retinol makes you sensitive to light.

Unlike the foundation the primer does not contain alcohol, so if that was a no-go for you for the foundation or the foundation color didn’t work for you, you might get happy with the primer. So, seriously, even though this is sold only as a makeup item, it packs more skin care punch than most of the regular skin care in the drugstore! If you have trouble finding a good cream you might as well just use this.

But for now, on to the makeup part:

The product comes out like this, a little peachy and shimmery.

But when you blend it out, it is colorless so it will work for every skintone. In this pic, the top half is covered in primer and the bottom half isn’t. So one half is all glowy and the other is just dry skin. So yes, it delivery on the promised glow, but keep in mind this isn’t a liquid highlighter. Five years ago you might have called it a highlighter, but today it really isn’t. And to be quite honest when you put foundation on top you won’t see much of the glow anymore. Combining it with the Fresh & Fit foundation will give you a “glowy” face but that’s because the foundation has such a “glowy” finish. I put that word in scare quotes because one person’s glow is another one’s oil slick.

Anyway you can use this primer with whatever foundation you want but with a full coverage you won’t see much of the shine anymore. Which personally I prefer (see oil slick).

I super love the texture of this it feels like you’re putting on a much more expensive thing! It just glides on. This is a silicone primer, but feels less siliconey than my other silicone primers. Being silicone based helps it minimize the appearance of pores, as promised on the packaging. However, this will only work if you then put foundation on top. Because the primer makes your face smoother physically, but it will not cover your pores optically, especially with that glow going on. So keep that in mind if you want to use it alone.

As a primer it worked well for me aka it was easy to apply makeup on top and it made makeup last longer (compared to using no primer). It did not last any better than my usual primers and it did not keep me shine free on my T-zone at all (well, it IS called a glow primer).

Let’s go back to the skin care properties. This isn’t sold as such and isn’t making any promises, but I think that using this for a while did help my skin. In the long run it was a bit annyoing to use as a primer because I always had to put on extra sun protection as well. So sometimes I’d just use it on normal, no makeup days as well.

Note that this product includes both niacinamide and vitamin c, which many blogs will tell you not to mix. There’s an interesting thread on reddit about it here, if you want to read up more on that. You will also find advice not to mix retinol with vitamin c. This cream obviously does not care, it just throws all of it together. Here‘s a link to Paula’s Choice talking about retinol myths. I just wanna mention it in case that’s something you personally don’t wanna combine on your face.

Me, I’ve been using a vitamin c toner with a niacinamide serum for six months now and I had no problems with that. They don’t seem to cancel each other out. Worst thing that happens is that my face flushes for a few minutes (less than five) but that happens whenever I apply niacinamide and is normal.

Word of caution if your skin is not used to niacinamide or retinol you might get some redness or small pimples at first, but this is normal and should stop soon. If you have any worse reactions or if it doesn’t stop after two weeks, stop using product.

Whoa this post eneded up longer than I thought. So long in fact, that this is posting on a thursday instead of wednesday. I guess I was very happy to find a good quality primer in the drugstore. I hope you enjoyed this post. Tomorrow there’ll be another perfume review up. Next week there might be some more lipsticks (highly probable).

It’s October! Get out the Halloween gear! Ahem. Not that this blog is going to be any spookier than usual. I’m still working through stuff I picked up during summer…

Alright I’m finally getting around to reviewing another liquid lipstick by MAC. (I have three but only reviewed the red one so far.) This is the Retro Matte Liquid Lipcolor in Flesh Stone. For once, a MAC item that is not LE! Whooo!

Half dried arm swatch. It dries quickly and gets very matte. It’s one of those liquid lipsticks that emphasize every nook and cranny so to say. But I think it doesn’t look too bad on the lips:

Fully dried lip swatch. I love how grey the color is. As pale as I am, every brownish color with only a bit of red looks pretty off on me, but this mud color here works.

The product is very long lasting, only oil gets it off at all. When I eat it does get removed on the inside but not too much. As such, it is drying. I can live with that since I use a strong lip balm morning and evening, but those with very dry lips might not like it.

To prevent the color from cracking it is important to smile after application so the color can settle everywhere. Then I had no problems with cracking, but like already mentioned it totally highlights all lip lines. All my very matte liquids do this.

Honestly after I got Flesh Stone I stopped looking for the perfect grungy brownish nude lip color, because this is it. (Then I decided I super needed metal finish lipsticks, because.)

Huge recommendation if you’re looking for a light greyish very matte color. That’s not a specific category at all…

That’s it for today. Be safe and tune in Wednesday for a review on a good affordable face powder.